Sometimes I think that book inside is like the alien in the first alien movie, struggling to get out.
The best an author can get is a traditional publisher throwing its full weight behind their book. That hasn’t changed and won’t anytime soon. But mere half-hearted support from a major publisher seems to me in many ways worse than successful crowdfunding. You do get notability, prestige, a (probably crappy) advance, a better chance at critical reviews, and handholding; but you sacrifice almost all control, for an indefinite and probably very long period.
Which is a big deal nowadays. That control gives you a lot of ways to increase your readership online. In particular, Amazon’s Kindle Direct offers a number of effective (albeit time-limited) promotional options, including making your books available for free, or making them very cheap while still claiming their 70% royalty rate. And/or you can bite the bullet and Creative-Commons-license your work for free, as I’ve done. Major publishers are, quite rationally, rarely interested in doing this; it might be good for the author in the long run, but it’s not particularly likely to be good for them.
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